Unlike some people who “didn’t get into drinking” until after college or later, I knew I liked it the first time I tried it. I believe that was a vodka-infused watermelon, a few weeks after I turned sixteen, at a beach in Spain where I was staying with a mostly hands-off host family. Back in high school, I suffered from debilitating shyness. I’d already given up being part of any social group or even having a single friend and spent lunchtime and free periods in my favorite library carrel next to the wall. Alcohol gave me wings; like a Red Bull commercial I was transformed into something free and light, I was suddenly able to soar away from the scared mute loner I thought I was stuck with for the rest of my life, and become that laughing teenager I’d imagined these years would be about.
Raw-dogging reality
Raw-dogging reality
Raw-dogging reality
Unlike some people who “didn’t get into drinking” until after college or later, I knew I liked it the first time I tried it. I believe that was a vodka-infused watermelon, a few weeks after I turned sixteen, at a beach in Spain where I was staying with a mostly hands-off host family. Back in high school, I suffered from debilitating shyness. I’d already given up being part of any social group or even having a single friend and spent lunchtime and free periods in my favorite library carrel next to the wall. Alcohol gave me wings; like a Red Bull commercial I was transformed into something free and light, I was suddenly able to soar away from the scared mute loner I thought I was stuck with for the rest of my life, and become that laughing teenager I’d imagined these years would be about.